this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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Why does it need to be the open source version?
Because Nvidia refuses to offer up to date driver (compatible with mainline kernel) for legacy cards like in my mac and I refuse to throw away a fully working computing machine. I would not mind if they stopped supporting but provide the community with the source and I would not mind if they would still update their proprietary drivers for legacy cards. Now my situation is ether use the reverse engineered driver, which seems like a time bomb that kills my install (based on my experience) or I use the outdated legacy driver patched by the community, which seems not to work on 6.6.6. next I try a LTS kernel version.
So tldr: if Nvidia would open the source of the legacy driver, they would make the live of many people more easy and they would actively work on minimizing eWaste which would be a win for sustainability. I don’t need more horsepower, my MacBook 5,5 is strong enough, all it needs is software.
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/process/stable-api-nonsense.rst